I agree fully with you in regards to the fact that I think to an extent that this whole COVID-19 event is being taken way out of proportion by the majority of the general public who have no training in the healthcare sector.. However IMHO and in no way meaning to cause offense, I think it's naive that we should view this virus as insignificant or for lack of better words "not serious".
I agree with
@rememdium on their comment regarding taking China's statements with a grain of salt.. They do have a history of falsifying information that they release on an international scale in order to maintain a positive outside opinion.. You only have to do a quick google search to see how many people are questioning the legitamacy of their coronavirus publications.. I'm by no means claiming to have an in-depth understanding of the situation, but it seems curious to me that the number of deaths in China is now officially less than that of Italy (who I would consider to have a far stronger medical system, even if we're only speaking in terms of population and their relative likelihood to experience an overload of their hospitals etc.).. Even if you're going off the spread within NSW alone, 50 new cases overnight in what is, comparatively, still an early stage of the infection (based on international trends)... How does it make sense that a country such as China with over 1 billion citizens, a country with incredible amounts of high-density living, has only 80,000 reported cases, whereas Italy, with a population of 60 million, has approximately half the number of cases at 41,000... You do the math on that one. Furthermore, Wuhan (the epicentre), a city of 11 million, is still completely locked down according to what I've read, so that's not exactly inspiring confidence.
I think it's scary that seasonal Influenza is killing 0.1% of the infected population each year, which is far less than the current COVID-19 mortality rate (obviously in absence of a vaccine), yet many people are trying to insist that because coronavirus is not that much worse than the common flu, and is "only fatal to the older generation", and that it's not a big deal. Even if the retired, the older generation are not directly stimulating the economy by way of employment, they are a significant factor in our national economy (e.g. aged care, travel/tourism) and so while maybe in terms of total fatalities, you specifically feel it is not a "serious virus", I would say that the fact that our government and chief medical officer seem concerned with the possibility of an overload of our healthcare system is enough reason to be wary of this!
Again, as I opened with, I'm not claiming to be an expert, I'm not subscribing to the fear-mongering, but at the same time I'm not willing to write this off as a "nothing event" right now.
(20min delay)